


Waiting for the Devil

by tittysatan



Category: Devilman (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Midwest, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Drug Use, I mean Rio, M/M, Religious Guilt, Self-Immolation, Suicide, Trans Male Ryo, Underage Drinking, it's not described in any detail but I figured I should include it, so to be clear: it's the date the last chapter of Devilman was published, the significance of June 24 is an exceptionally oblique reference even by my standards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:09:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25949389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tittysatan/pseuds/tittysatan
Summary: So it’s 1973 and you’re a couple of boys from the Midwest, wishing you were anywhere else but where you are, but in-state tuition’s cheaper and neither of you are rich or geniuses. (Sometimes Adam wonders about Rio, though, about the flashes of intuition he shows, about whether he’d get good grades if he just tried.) So it’s summer, too hot and too humid and too many damn insects, and you’re between high school and college, and there’s something between you that you can’t name, and there’s something in the air that you can’t name either.So that’s where you’re at.
Relationships: Asuka Ryo | Satan & Fudo Akira
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Waiting for the Devil

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily inspired by [Romantic Atrocities](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19442461) by Kam Claudel and [i saved you a cup of coffee but you died in the woods](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12109710) by noeybody.

“Have you ever felt…” Rio started, which was always a bad sign, “...like, I don’t know, like you’re hollow. Like some part of you hasn’t grown in quite right, like there’s some thing that everyone else has that you just _don’t._ And you don’t know what it is except that it’s not there. Have you ever felt like that?”

Adam watched him, head in his hand, as Rio took another deep drag on his joint, held it for what seemed like an impossibly long time, breathed out, smoke clouding his bright, bright blue eyes.

“I am pretty sure I have never felt like that.”

* * *

_They met in ‘69._

_Adam was on his stomach in front of the dumpster behind the school when he heard footsteps behind him. “Lemme try.”_

_“There’s a cat, I think it’s injured or something…” Adam said before he registered the words. Then he looked up, and there was a beautiful boy looking down at him, sun haloing his blonde hair. He had a trenchcoat on. That always stuck with Adam because it was way too warm for a trenchcoat._

_“Lemme try,” the boy said again, lying down next to Adam and reaching out a hand._

_“I’ve been trying to coax it out for like twenty minutes now, I’ll go get some food or something if you can stay here…” was as far as Adam got before he realized there was a little snout poking out from under the dumpster._

_“Its leg looks broken,” the boy said, taking the cat gently by the scruff and looking it over. “Probably a stray, too.”_

_“...how’d you do that?” Adam asked._

_“...do what?”_

_“Get it to come out like that.”_

_The boy shrugged. “Animals like me. C’mon, let’s take it to a vet.”_

_“I’m Adam,” Adam said as they stood up and started walking._

_“Rio. Wanna hang out later? I’ve got vodka.”_

_Adam stopped in surprise. “I… I’m fifteen…?”_

_“Yeah, me too. So do you wanna get drunk or not?”_

* * *

It was 10:30 on February 17th.

“You are unbelievably bad at this,” Rio said, leaned up against the wall of Adam’s room.

“Fuck you too,” Adam said, still strumming away from his seat on the bed. “I’m learning. I just got this thing, you can’t expect me to be Hendrix.”

“Not on an acoustic.”

“I’ll get an electric guitar when I can play well enough to justify it!” Adam said, strumming louder as Rio took a swig from his bottle. 

“...is this fun for you?” he asked.

“Would it kill you not to be an asshole?”

“I’m serious. Is this, I don’t know, enough? This kinda life?”

“...what’s that supposed to mean?” Adam asked, still paying more attention to his chords.

“The kinda life where you go to college and get a job and play guitar and listen to music. Would you be happy with that? Are you happy with this?”

“I dunno,” Adam said. “Never really thought about it. I guess so?”

“Yeah,” Rio said. “I thought you’d say that.”

“It’s not enough for you?”

“No.” There wasn’t a word for the look in his eyes, bitter and sad and angry and haunted all at once. He had that look a lot. “It’s not even close to enough.”

“What would you want, then?”

“...I don’t know,” Rio said, turning away, staring off at nothing. “Something else. I’m waiting for it. I’ve been waiting for it as long as I can remember.”

“I hope it comes soon,” Adam said without thinking, only to hit a discordant note as Rio’s eyes met his.

“No you don’t.”

Neither of them said anything else. Adam went back to his guitar. After a moment, Rio pulled a harmonica out of the inside pocket of his trenchcoat and lifted it to his lips.

It was amazing how much better he sounded than Adam.

* * *

_This is what Rio’s like._

_Rio is a crush of opposites wrangled together into something human-shaped. Distracted and intense (he stares through things like there’s something printed on the inside that only he can see), aggressive and guarded (he only ever touches people when he’s punching them), brilliant and idiotic (if his intuition’s through the roof, his self-preservation instinct’s through the floor)._

_Demonic and angelic, all bloodthirst and long lashes and sharp teeth and radiance._

_Rio pulls up in front of Adam’s house at 3 in the morning on a school night and takes him joyriding on the interstate until dawn._

_Rio sits in the back of the class and plays with a butterfly knife._

_Rio has birds perch on him like a goddamn Disney princess._

_Rio has gotten into more fistfights than anyone else in school._

_Rio talks for an hour straight and not a word of it makes sense._

_Rio has the most beautiful singing voice Adam has ever heard._

_Rio has stopped keeping track of how many near-death encounters he’s had._

_Rio always sounds sarcastic, to the point that Adam starts to think everything he says might be serious._

_Rio buries the dead animals he finds on the side of the road._

_Rio might be drunk, stoned, or both literally 24/7._

_Rio knows how to hotwire a car._

_Rio is sitting on the curb, smoking, and the streetlight is a halo in his hair as he turns to Adam and smirks and asks if he wants to shotgun._

_Adam doesn’t know if he’s joking. He can’t say anything. Rio takes a drag and lets it out slow and doesn’t ask again._

_That’s what Rio’s like._

* * *

It was 2 AM on April 29th.

“I am reasonably certain,” Rio said after he'd had a worrying number of shots from the bottle of whiskey he’d swiped from his dad, “that God hates me.” 

They were sitting on the roof of Rio’s old Pontiac, in the parking lot of a boarded up church on the edge of the woods, because that’s where you go to drink when you’re nineteen and you live in Missouri.

“I didn’t know you were raised Catholic,” Adam said. It was supposed to be a joke.

“You can’t see it,” Rio said, turning to him, eyes fever-bright and lost, “but it’s there. Like a mark on my forehead. The whole ‘six six six’ thing is so _stupid,_ why would it be a number? But there’s something. I can feel it.”

“God can’t hate you, God doesn’t exist,” Adam said, like he definitely believed it and wasn’t just trying to convince himself.

“It’s like…like being watched,” Rio said, taking another swig of whiskey. He wasn’t listening to a word Adam had to say. He never did. Adam didn’t really mind, though, because he wasn’t listening to anything Rio had to say anymore either. This was just what he got like when he was fucked up sometimes. 

Funny, the way Catholic guilt gets into you when you’re not even Catholic.

“I am being watched,” Rio said again. No, ‘said’ wasn't strong enough. Pronounced, declared. He was staring into the dark of the woods like something was staring back at him. “There are eyes on me, always.”

Rio talked like this when he was fucked up.

“Okay, I think you’ve had enough,” Adam said, taking the bottle from his unresisting hands. Rio didn’t even seem to notice it was gone. “Lemme sober up a bit and I’ll drive us home, alright?”

“There is something truly awful coming and there is nothing any of us can do to prevent it,” Rio said.

“...are you talking about Watergate?”

“No,” Rio said, turning to Adam, eyes bright and hollow like he didn’t know a joke when he heard one, because he didn’t. “I am not talking about Watergate.”

* * *

_“So what the hell kind of a name is Rio, anyways?” Adam asked once, when they were sprawled in the car together and he was drunk enough that the usual reasons he didn’t ask Rio questions like that (like where his mom was, like why he’d never brought Adam over to his place) didn’t feel so convincing._

_“The kind I picked for myself,” Rio said with a shrug and a grin. “Rio Angelo. Nice ring to it, right?”_

_Adam had to admit it did have kind of a nice ring to it. “Well, it’s better than Adam Foster.”_

_“Adam Foster is a pretty boring name,” Rio said, nodding._

_“What was your name before you changed it?” Adam asked, and when he looked over at Rio, he remembered all the reasons why he didn’t ask questions like that. “...I mean. If you don’t mind telling me.”_

_Rio didn’t say anything, just took another swig from the bottle and turned up the radio, and Adam didn’t ask again._

* * *

It was 8 PM on May 15th.

“There’s something wrong with me,” Rio said without taking his eyes off his cards.

“What, you’re finally realizing?”

“I’m being serious,” he said, glaring at Adam. “Like, I’m not talking about all the... Y’know, the stuff you’re talking about. The delinquent stuff. Kids do that shit all the time.” 

“Any sevens?” Adam said.

“Go fish. There are things about me that are seriously off. You know what I’m talking about, right? It’s...hard to think about, somehow. It gets all hazy.”

“Your turn,” Adam said, taking a card and adding it to his hand.

“I’m sure I have moments when I know what sort of things I mean. But it never sticks. I try to think through everything I know about myself and either I can’t, I get distracted, or everything just seems completely normal. Even though I know it’s not. It’s like that for you too, right?”

“I think I’m pretty normal? Pick a damn card.”

“Aces. I know you’re normal, Adam, I’m talking about myself. You can’t tell me you don’t think there’s something wrong with me.”

“The hell I know,” Adam said, handing over the card he’d just pulled. “Either you’re stupid lucky, or you’re cheating. Somehow. Can we just call it your win and play something else?”

“I’m pretty sure I know things I don’t have any way of knowing,” Rio said, staring absently at the ace. “I can’t remember any examples but I’m pretty sure it’s been happening more and more often. It happens all the time.”

“If that’s your way of excusing your unbelievable winning streak--”

“Adam,” Rio said, eyes snapping up to his. “You know what I’m talking about. I know you do.”

Adam did know, was the thing.

It was just stupid. So what if he had some vague impression about Rio knowing stuff. There wasn’t any basis for it. If he could really do something like that, wouldn’t they remember? Wouldn’t _someone?_ It didn’t make sense.

“It’s getting worse,” Rio said, sweeping up his pairs and squaring the cards, then pausing, frowning at them. “...no, 'worse' isn’t the right word. Closer, maybe. It’s getting closer. Whatever it is. It won’t be much longer.”

“...let’s play something else,” Adam said again, trying to force down the twist of his gut.

* * *

_Adam woke up to the phone ringing._

_It was pitch black outside, some stupid hour of the night (or morning if you wanted to get technical), and Rio was calling him. Rio was the only one who would call him at -- he checked the clock -- 3 AM._

_After the tenth or so time this happened, Adam’s parents had agreed to get him his own phone line._

_“Where are you,” Adam mumbled into the phone as he picked up._

_“Adaaaam...” Rio slurred on the other end, laughing a bit to himself. “Did… Did I wake you up…?”_

_“Of course you woke me up, just tell me where you are so I can drive your drunk ass home,” Adam said. “Were you at a party?”_

_“Mm-hm.”_

_“And you’re calling from a payphone now, right?” He couldn’t hear voices or music from the other end._

_“Mm-hm.”_

_“Gimme the cross-streets.”_

_“It’s, uhhh… Lemme see.” There was a clang that made Adam wince as Rio apparently dropped the receiver, leaving it to slam into the side of the phone booth._

_Sometimes he wondered why he put up with this shit._

_It’s not like he thought Rio couldn’t take care of himself. Well. Sort of. In a lot of ways he very obviously could not. But that was the thing about Rio -- he was somehow always fine. He’d never OD’d, despite the frankly alarming amount of booze and drugs he seemed to have in his system at literally all times. He’d totaled more than a few cars, but he’d never gotten worse than scrapes and bruises himself. If Adam hadn’t picked up, he probably would’ve knocked out in the phone booth and woken up the next morning with a hangover, but that’d be it._

_If he somehow wasn’t okay, though…_

_“It’s, uh,” Rio said, back on the line. “5th aaaaand… Broabway. Broa… Brooooadway.”_

_“...couldn’t you get shitfaced a little closer?”_

_“Mmm, nextime.”_

_“Just stay there,” Adam said. “If you wander off I will personally kill you.”_

_“No y’won’t.”_

_“...no, I won’t,” Adam said with a sigh. “Be there soon.” He hung up before Rio could say anything else and grabbed his car keys._

_Why did he do this, he wondered as he drove._

_Because Rio needed someone to take care of him, and there wasn’t anyone else but Adam. Maybe._

_Because Rio was interesting, because Adam had never met anyone like him, because Rio’s chaos was everything Adam could never be. Probably._

_Because Adam pulled up to the curb in front of the phone booth Rio was slumped inside, and Rio’s eyes met his and he smiled like Adam was the only person in the world he wanted to see. “Heya.”_

_“C’mon, get up,” Adam said, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him to his feet. “You’re gonna get yourself killed one of these days.”_

_“Nah,” Rio laughed, stumbling to the car and collapsing into the passenger’s seat. “You’re here.”_

_Adam didn’t say anything to that, but he felt his face grow hot as he pushed the gas._

_“...you finally gonna tell me where you live?” he asked after a while, glancing over at Rio._

_“Mm, nope,” Rio said, eyes closed, melting into the seat. “Lemme crash with you.”_

_Adam sighed. “I cannot wait to move out. Sick of having to explain you to my folks.”_

_“Sorry,” Rio said, and when Adam glanced over again, his eyes were bright blue in the dark._

_“...s’alright.”_

_Rio seemed like he sobered up a bit by the time they pulled into the driveway of Adam’s house. That was another weird thing about Rio -- he only ever seemed to stay drunk as long as it was convenient. Hell of a metabolism. Adam still held his arm as they went inside, though. Couldn’t have him tripping over the stairs and waking up his folks. “You can have my bed,” Adam said, dumping him down onto the mattress. That was the routine -- Rio got the bed, Adam took the couch, because he didn’t wanna risk his parents waking up to find their son’s weird stoner friend hungover in the living room. They could probably both fit on the bed, but…_

_“...Lucy,” Rio said quietly._

_“Huh?”_

_“My name used to be Lucy,” he said, moonlight glowing white in his hair, face hidden in shadows. “Before I changed it.”_

_“Oh,” Adam said, processing that particular piece of information._

_It made sense._

_Why Rio always wore loose clothes that hid the lines of his body, turtlenecks and his stupid trenchcoat even in summer. Why he always changed and showered for gym alone. Adam had always thought he was just weirdly shy. There was so much weird about Rio that he’d kind of stopped questioning any of it. But that made sense._

_“Lucy,” Adam said, “is a really stupid name.”_

_“I know, right?” Rio replied, and Adam could hear him smiling._

_“Lucy is a name for a 50’s housewife. You are definitely a Rio.”_

_“Exactly.”_

_“A Really Idiotic...uh… What’s something that starts with O?”_

_“Fuck you.”_

_He was smiling as he said it, though, and Adam was suddenly so aware that he could kiss him, and Rio would let him, and he’d know it wasn’t because of what he just told him, but because he trusted him enough to tell him at all. He could run his fingers through Rio’s hair and kiss him, and then…_

_And then they’d have to face whatever came next._

_“Go to sleep,” Adam said, pulling off Rio’s shoes and throwing a blanket over him. “I’ll bring you a glass of water.”_

_“Thanks, Adam.”_

_“...yeah.”_

* * *

It was 11:45 PM on June 24th. 

That meant something to Rio, apparently.

“I don’t expect you to get it,” he said again, which was good because Adam absolutely did not get it, “but it’s coming. This _something_ I’ve been waiting for, it’s coming, and, and…” Rio screeched into a little parking lot for a regional park, not bothering to turn the car off or close the doors, let alone actually take a parking space.

“Wait, shouldn’t you--” was as far as Adam got before Rio pulled him out of the passenger seat.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rio said, eyes bright with certainty. “Stupid things like cars. Not important.”

All Adam could do was jog along behind Rio as he turned on his heel and walked into the pitch-black woods, because he knew Rio would just go by himself if he didn't, and he couldn’t help but feel a certain sense of protective responsibility towards his idiot stoner friend.

“I can’t explain it,” Rio said as he kept walking deeper and deeper, never stumbling, Adam tripping over roots as he tried to follow. “It’s this… The stars are finally going to align. Not literally. Maybe literally, I don’t know, I don’t know how it works, but everything is finally going to fall into place and it will make _sense_ and--” And he stopped in his tracks, not turning around as Adam bumped into his back. “It’s going to be the worst thing that has ever happened but I can’t bring myself to be sorry.”

Adam wondered what Rio was on this time. Definitely nothing good. He didn’t know whether to let him wear himself out or try and get him back to the car. Assuming he even _could_ get him back to the car. Which he probably could not.

He didn’t have time to say or do anything before Rio started walking again, climbing up the narrow path, never missing a step, and the decision was made for him. “What’s going to happen?” Adam asked, because somehow it was even scarier when Rio wasn’t talking. At least when he was rambling on about absolute bullshit it was familiar.

This time Rio did turn, still climbing as he looked back over his shoulder, and Adam shivered as their eyes met. “I don’t know,” Rio said, eyes and teeth bright in the dark. “We’re going to find out.”

Adam wished he hadn’t asked, because something about the way Rio said it, something about the look in his eyes… For an instant, he thought he felt it. Felt whatever _thing_ Rio was always going on about.

“Soon,” Rio said as he turned away. “It won’t be much longer.”

Adam could feel himself shivering as he followed, even in the heat. He was worried; about Rio, of course, his idiot friend who probably got some bad acid, but there was something else too. Something in the air that the sound of cicadas couldn’t drown out.

No, worried wasn’t right. He was _scared._ He wanted all of this to end, for Rio to come down from whatever he was on, for him to go back to his normal self, because this wasn’t normal.

Or maybe it was. In a sense, this was probably the platonic ideal of Rio, once you stripped away everything else. 

Adam couldn’t help but want him to stop, though.

He was picking up the pace, now, further on into the dark of the trees, faster than Adam could keep up with. “Rio!” he called out, but the pale shape ahead of him didn’t stop.

And then he turned a bend in the path, and he was gone.

Adam stumbled to a halt, staring at the place Rio had disappeared. It was stupid to think of it like that. He knew it was. He’d catch up to him when he got to wherever he was going and talk him down, take him back to his place, dump him in his bed and get him a glass of water. Just like always. He kept telling himself that, but…

But he could _feel_ it.

It was on his skin, inside him, a different shape that was truer than his own, a different name that had always been his. This -- this self, this reality -- felt so thin and pale in comparison. And maybe, if he looked in just the right way, if he reached out and took hold of that something--

Rio was getting to him. Adam knew that. He was alone in the woods in the middle of the night and his friend was having a bad trip and his years of bullshit rambling was getting to him. 

Adam started to run.

He broke into the clearing and there was Rio, moon haloing his head, impossibly big and bright over the horizon. He was smiling. He looked holy.

“...Angelo,” Adam murmured without meaning to. “...from ‘angel.’”

And then--

_And then Rio turns away, profile silhouetted for an instant, and for a moment it’s like his feet lift off the ground and he’s walking towards something Adam can’t see--_

And then it’s all over.

Rio stood there, back to Adam, arms hanging lifelessly at his sides, staring at the moon.

“...it’s not coming.”

His voice was flat.

“This was the last chance. It’s not coming.” 

Confusion, now, and betrayal.

“What am I supposed to do?”

Despair.

“If this is all there is, _this,_ on and on forever…”

Fear, and panic, and Adam finally remembered how to breathe.

“Hey, hey, take it easy, Rio,” he said, stepping forward and putting a hand on his shoulder, turning Rio to see the tears rolling down his cheeks, the pinpricks of his pupils. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” Rio said, staring through him. “How could it be okay?”

“You’ll sober up, and--” 

Rio’s laugh -- sharp and bitter -- made Adam jolt. “I’m not on acid, Adam, or whatever you think I’m on. All of that was just to get me through to here, and...and there’s no ‘here.’ There’s nothing.”

Adam could feel his stomach start to twist. This wasn’t okay, this was a different kind of bad than Rio’s usual intoxicated rambling, something was really truly wrong and he had no idea what to do about it. “Just take deep breaths, Rio, please…”

“Would you rather be ignorant and happy or miserable and know _why?”_ Rio said, words tumbling rapidfire from his mouth before he cut himself off with another bitter laugh. “Why am I asking, it doesn’t eat at you like it eats at me, you’ve got all your parts and pieces intact and in order so why should you care?”

“Rio--”

“This isn’t me,” Rio said, suddenly serious. “I knew the name and body I used to have weren’t right but these aren’t right either. There’s another name I should have, another body, they were so close I could _touch_ them and for a moment I really thought…” He was crying in earnest now, tears glittering in his long lashes. “I can’t keep going like this.”

Adam suddenly realized he was crying too. He wanted to pull Rio into a hug and tell him that he understood, he’d felt it too, everything would be alright, he’d _make_ it alright, he’d tear down God if he had to, but he was frozen. It hadn’t been real. He couldn’t make himself believe it had been real.

“This was supposed to be it,” Rio said. “This was supposed to be the moment. Everything was supposed to change and I wasn’t going to have to be _me_ anymore. But here I still am.”

“I love you,” Adam said, desperately, because it was true.

There was a pause, and then Rio smiled. “I know,” he said. “I love you too, Adam. But it’s not enough.” There was something strange in his voice now, clear and detached. “I know what I need to do.” 

Rio’s gait was mechanical as he turned and started back down the hill, Adam trailing helplessly after him. He felt the panic mounting in his gut, pulse pounding in his ears, but what was he supposed to do? What _could_ he do? 

Maybe this was how Rio felt all the time, he thought meaninglessly. Like he was just being pulled along by some higher power, helpless to resist.

Rio didn’t hesitate as he reached the car (headlights still on), popped the trunk, pulled out a crowbar, slammed it into the gas cap with impossible strength. “Whoa whoa whoa, what the fuck are you doing!?” Adam finally snapped out of his stupor, stumbling forward towards Rio only to freeze when their eyes met.

“It’s going to work,” Rio said, not looking away as he shrugged off his coat, held it in the stream of gas flowing from the tank. “I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t going to work.”

“Wouldn’t do _what!?"_

Rio had the most angelic smile on his face as he put his gas-soaked coat back on and pulled out a lighter.

“...how much did he weigh?” 

Adam didn’t know why he asked it, and he didn’t know why his chest felt so heavy when he heard Rio’s charred corpse weighed exactly as much as expected.


End file.
